2011 Northeastern Junior Training Camp

Last weekend was the annual Junior Training Camp and NEOC Junior Meg Parsons wrote all about it:        

Although with about 25 other juniors, I attended the 2011 Northeastern Junior Training Camp, held on April 8-10 at Blue Mountain Lodge in Peekskill, NY.  My dad and I arrived around 7:00pm on Friday night, grabbed a quick bite of dinner and settled into the dorm.  Soon I was playing cards, which seems a staple every year at the camp.  At the table was a mix of people I know and people I didn’t know;  the game, President, I didn’t know either but figured out pretty quickly.  The minutes ticked by and we played a few more hands of cards than I would have expected-  I knew from previous years that we should have been doing a Night-O once it was dark.  It was then that I learned Samantha Saeger and Ross Smith, our two coaches, were stranded in Worcester, MA because Sam’s “new” Volvo had broken down.  

Fortunately, several people stepped in to fill the gap while plans were made to rescue Sam and Ross.  Guy Olsen led an icebreaker activity of Two Truths and a Lie.  Among the interesting facts that came to light was that Jeff Saeger had worked in the pit crew as part of Paul Newman’s racing team.  Perhaps the most entertaining lie involved John Osborn describing the details of his life as a commercial airline pilot.
Then Jeff Saeger took over, explaining the details of the annual Trivia Night-O.  We were broken up into teams of three, given a map and 30 minutes to find ten controls around the area.  Each control had a trivia question at it; the person at the control either needed to write down the question (or the answer, if they knew it) and bring it back their team.  Letters from the answers spelled out a word- Jellybeans.  The evening ended with word that Boris Granovskiy was rescuing Sam and Ross and that they’d arrive in the morning.

The next day, after a delicious Janet Porter breakfast, our coaches did arrive.  The first training exercise practiced map simplification:  ribbons along the way marked key features on the map that we should see on the way to the control.  This went pretty well for me, except for one control that involved quite a bit of wandering around a steep, rocky hillside.  After lunch, our advanced group did a contour reading exercise.  Ross had taken out all the details on the map except for the contours-  which was somewhat disorienting, because there are many cliffs and trails at Blue Mountain.  I started first, and was running along to number 1 when suddenly my ankle rolled sideways and I heard a crack- probably not a good sign.  I roll my ankle somewhat frequently but this time was different;  I tried to walk it off for a couple of minutes and the pain didn’t go away… definitely not good.  Concerned and upset, I turned around and spent the rest of the afternoon with ice on my ankle, getting medical advice from a variety of people.
The final activity for the day was the Uphill Map Memory relay.  Teams of mixed ability must copy a course, leg by leg, onto a blank map.  The twist is that the master maps are at the top of the hill.   It’s definitely a different experience watching the relay rather than running it!

Two highlights of the after-dinner activities were a large game of sardines and Kestrel Owens giving a presentation about his experience at ski-JWOC a few months before.

Sunday was slightly different from past years.  After packing up the lodge, the entire group traveled to Lake Welch in Harriman State Park for a local meet put on by HVO.  Ross and Sam encouraged us to pre-plan our routes, putting the skills we had practiced Saturday into action.  I carefully walked the Brown course with a taped ankle- it’s amazing how many more details you notice when you’re not running.

While the weekend had a few more mishaps than usual, it still came together as a resounding success.  Thanks to all cooks, coaches and others that made it happen- it would not be possible without you!

Flying Pig XV

The US spring orienteering season got kick-started the first weekend in April with the classic three-day event Flying Pig, organized by Orienteering Cincinnati. Below follows a report by guest columnist Nikolay Nachev of Cascade Orienteering, member of both the US Summer Orienteering and the US Ski-O Teams.

Nikolay is all smiles after winning Sunday's race

The past weekend I flew east to Cincinnati for the 15th annual Flying Pig orienteering event. This year the program included Middle distance race on Friday, the US Ultra Long National Championships on Saturday and another Middle distance race on Sunday.

The Cincinnati Orienteering club ( OCIN ) event is one of my favorite locations, and I have been using it to start up my summer orienteering season for several years now.

As for this year's event I just came back from Sweden competing for US in the Ski WOC, and was short on time to adjust to foot orienteering techniques as well as fight jet lag and heavy skiing legs. Surprisingly my running form was really good. I did not feel any sluggishness or heaviness in my legs as in prior Flying Pig years.

On Friday I did run strong throughout the course but made several navigational errors I am not proud of. As a first woods orienteering race for the season, my navigation was a bit sloppy and even though I tried to stay ahead in the orienteering, I was not precise with my compass, and did not slowed enough to look at details on the map. I end up 5 mins back from the winners with a 3 min mistake and multiple smaller mistakes.

Friday's blue course

Saturday was the Ultra Long US Championships race at Hueston Woods park and we had 19 km in store. I was excited as I was feeling in a good form and felt rested even after the hard race on Friday. Focus was not 100%. Started off the course a bit cautiously, but my goal was to push hard hoping the legs will last through the course. Made one big 3 min mistake on a short leg that I did not read the map correctly, and multiple sloppy small bubbles. But being behind or sloppy on my navigation did not stop me from being in control of my running, and there was a lot of it. In the middle of the course I felt that I am doing 10 K road race with pit stops every 4 – 5 mins to get in the forest pick a control or two and go back on the road. I think a more interesting course could have been created given the map and terrain.

The challenge with this course though was that the last 3 – 4 km we finally left the road and were doing all forest navigation. That comes to you as a huge surprise after running for almost 2 hours mostly on road more or less at orange level course with some compass bearings for spice here and there…

So some people made mistakes there, for me I lost steam and slowed down considerably after the 2 hour 10 min mark. Which is interesting as this is usually the length of my regular long runs in training.

Ultimately, Norwegian Anders Tiltnes on a college exchange program here in Texas was fastest with 2 hours and 1 min. Some 28 mins ahead of second place. Embarrassing? Not really… Anders is ranked 59 in the world, incidentally sharing the place with past world champion and multiple WOC medalist Mikhail Mamleev. On top of that looks like Anders is a Ultra long distance specialist as he finished 2^nd at the Norwegian Ultralong Championships ahead of most of the Norway’s orienteering elite. Hope to see and race Anders again here in US in the coming months.

First for the US championships eligible and second overall was Maricel Olaru from Chicago.

I finished 2^nd in the US Championships eligible runners and 4^th overall.

Sunday was the second middle distance race at a more technical and a bit dense part of Hueston Woods park. This ended up one of my best orienteering races in recent years. In the morning I was really surprised that I was not stiff and I was able to get out of my bed just fine. This does not happen to me usually even after 1 hour 40 min classic distance races let alone after 2:40 mins ultra long. It was another confirmation that the long running miles and skiing sessions in December and January were paying off, as much as this sounds like a cliché.

My mind felt fresh and rested as well, as I was able to get two good nights of sleep not waking up from the jet lag at 3 AM feeling fresh as a pickle.

From navigation and focus point of view, I can not say I had a good orienteering flow or I was “in the zone” before or during the race. On the contrary, as I was in my start minute and about to punch the SI box the start guy was about to hand me the map and I realized I did not have my compass….. ooops… Ran back to the clothing bag to fish for my jacket where I had left my compass. So I waited and started at the next available empty spot. Also during the run I was slowing down ( coming out of controls to look at my map and decide or reconfirm on a route choices) more than I usually do and this was annoying me actually. I caught myself several times slowing down to confirm what I need to do next, or check whether my route is good, and kicking myself mentally in the butt at the same time why am I slowing….

At the last 10 mins of the course my legs finally began to complain from the 3 days of running, and it was a struggle to keep pumping. The last kilometer of the course did not gave any room for rest to navigate, it was all compass bearing running in the flat open woods…

As I came back I realized that I have came in first: edged the Norwegian guy by a smudge, and put more than two minutes on the next North American.

Sunday's blue course

Later I was thinking about my Sunday run and trying to recapture the essence and feeling of it. What was going right, what did I do differently:

Short term /day of race factors:

• I was mentally rested.
• Physically the ultra long have taken the nervousness, the edge and the over-excitement and I was calm
• Following my compass religiously
• Slowing to read ahead and plan more than I usually do.
• Wearing my Cascade OC Jersey (see picture)

Long term factors:

• Solid base through the winter (good endurance and race recovery for the third day of racing)
• Ski O training (strength training done on the ski and in the gym)
• Experimenting with running technique (heel vs mid foot strike)

All in all I can't pinpoint one single thing and say because of that I had a good race. As usual nothing is black and white, but looks like there is no substitute for hard work. And some luck may be :)

You can see all courses from the weekend, along with route choices at OCIN's Route Gadget site.

Results and splits from the weekend are available at the Flying Pig webpage.

Already the best: IOF on Ali

Someone at the IOF has noticed the great results by Ali Crocker in the past year and wrote about it here. Check it out!

More photos from Ski WOC

Just a couple more photos of the cold snowy winter that we experienced in Sweden - now that everybody is back in our regular springtime abodes. These photos are all from the organizers.

Nikolay a bit boxed in at the start.
Nikolay again.
Greg in the mass start.

Adrian at the start of the Long distance.

Scott on the bridge.
Chaos at the back of the pack - taking the time to just chill out and read the map.
Greg after the long.

Start of the long distance - women.

Ali after finishing - she held off that Russian girl.
Alex coming in to the finish of the Long.

Alex done.

Robbie in the relay
Adrian


Ali in the relay.

Headcam guy.

Alex punching a control in the relay.

WCOC Training Camp Kicks off the Spring Season

By guest writer and US Team member Jordan Laughlin:


Photo by Greg Balter

This past weekend, while the United States Ski-O team was competing in
Sweden, Western Connecticut Orienteering Club hosted a foot-O training
camp to shake off the rust of the long hard winter in the Northeast
and kick off the orienteering season on a great note. Becky Carlyle
and Boris Granovskiy designed the great courses. This week was the
first that I have been injury free in the last month as I suffered
from an injury in my foot from too much road running in January. It
was nice to get into the woods and run.

Saturday’s events at Osbornedale State Park had a ‘back to the basics
focus.’ The weather was sunny, a little windy, and cool. Most
trainees were wearing many layers during their events and even more
between them. The events, distance estimation and compass, line-O,
and control-picking courses each did a great job on breaking the rust
off our skills. The week prior to this training camp was the first
week I began to do any real orienteering training in the woods this
year due to the immense amount of snow in the woods prior so some of
my rust had already began to come off but the training event expedited
the process. I began with the compass course, which was my weakest
skill this week. I messed up the first few controls and redid them
for extra practice, both backward and forward. By the end of the
event, my compass skill was more proficient but still in a little need
for some assistance. Next up was the line-O, this started in a nice
green patch but moved to open woods characteristic of most of
Osbornedale. This was great practice reading contour features and
certain point features, no problems for me on this one. My last
morning course was the control-pick. I started immediately after I
returned from the line-o in fear of losing my body heat. I arrived at
the start just prior to Ian Smith starting. I approached this as a
good thing so that I could practice my focus while running around
other runners. Running the control-pick was entirely fun even with a
period of time where I was failing to run in the woods and just
tripping over everything and hitting trees left and right. After
finishing the control-pick, I began to rest, relax, and refuel for our
evening training event, sprint training on Yale’s campus on a very
good map-in-progress. Socializing with the different groups in the
cold prior to collecting controls for the morning was enjoyable as
always, especially since I have not seen anyone since early November.

Prior to beginning the sprint course at Yale we met up piece-meal at
Becky’s Apartment, a whole 200 meters away from the start and finish.
We received our map, clue sheet, and control description (A small bit
of pink tape) and instructions to the start. While waiting to cross
the street to the start, a passing couple initiated conversation
asking me what I was doing. Immediately after they asked the
question, they recognized the map and informed me that they
participated in orienteering events but only in the woods. Sweet,
orienteers. I finished the conversation and shuffled off to the
start. This race was immensely fun due to the extreme urban nature
and irregular building shape and size characteristic of European
sprints. Initially, I had some problems finding the pink tape but it
became much easier with time. One control was improperly clued and a
few map errors were found but nothing that degraded from the
extraordinary training value. Immediately following the sprint, my
clan of West Pointers that decided to come quickly departed, as we
greatly desired to get back to allow homework to be started and sleep
to be had. Unfortunately, we missed the dinner hosted by Marie
Arnesson, surely a great bonding event.

Sunday’s courses culminated the weekend in a mass start event with 42
unique courses. Peter Gagarin’s comments immediately prior to the
start did absolutely nothing to quell the competition in the air,
“This is the event we have been striving for the entire time, a race
that everyone can win.” The race began quickly as with all relay
races. I started bumbling around to a few different controls but
finding each in relatively quick fashion but it was rather unnerving
since I was completely alone. Yep, I still have some rust to break
off. After my first long leg, I caught up to Ross Smith and we ran
near each other going in and out until about 2/3 of the way into our
courses where I promptly made a terrible parallel error which resulted
in a 10+ min error, again all alone. I finished the remaining portion
of the course decently. Ross chalked up a win in our friendly
rivalry. I guess it was good that I did not agree to the bet for a
box of cheerios. Thanks again to Becky, Boris, WCOC, and the rest of
the people who assisted and showed up for a great training event to
kick off the season.

Jordan's QuickRoute from Sunday is here.

Only 9 weeks until team trials and 20 weeks until WOC!

Women 8th, Men 15th in Relay

The competition week at SkiWOC finished with, of course, the relay, where each country battles it out for team glory. Racing for the US:

Men: Scott, Greg, Adrian
Women: Ali, Alex, Cristina

The men finished in 15th and the women in 8th. We'll get more details about the races up soon, but here are some pictures to keep you occupied in the meantime.

Adrian, just after finishing:

Cristina finishing:

Post-relay food consumption:

Getting warm in the garage by the finish:

Women's relay team:

Photos from the middle

These are taken from the organizers, who say that we can publish the photos freely. Mostly of the guys:

Adrian, during a spell of good weather.
Greg.
Scott.

Sprint:
Ali finishing.
Greg somewhere on the course.

Some photos from the Long...

We were all out racing, so not too many photos from during the race, but I did snap one of Scott powering to the finish, top American for the day! Ali may be our headline, but we should also give a shout out to Robbie Anderson, who barely squeaked into the top 40 for the guys, yea Canada!


Ali getting interviewed after the best US finish at Ski WOC ever!

Ali 8th in the Long!

Here's a quick post-race interview with Ali after she finished 8th in the Long:

12th In Mixed Relay!

Just a reminder that Greg and Ali finished 12th in the Mixed Relay. We hope to have the maps soon so that we can share those, too!

(Photo: Nick Barrable)